Billy Pearce: Leeds-born comedian on the thrill of a live audience, starting out in showbiz and panto at Bradford Alhambra

“I’ve turned to people next to me during the finale when the audience is stood up clapping and cheering and I’ve said I wish I could put that in a bottle and then one day when I’m old and I can’t get out of bed, I’ll unscrew the top and have a listen,” he says.

There are few stages upon which the Leeds-born performer and comedian has not appeared but he still struggles to put into words the feeling he gets when a live audience appreciates his work.

It is that laughter and applause which continues to motivate him and which has driven him through a career that has seen him clock up television appearances, perform in three Royal Variety shows and become a pantomime favourite.

It was perhaps inevitable that he would end up in showbiz. He has always been surrounded by the lifestyle, his late father an accomplished pianist and his mother, who died in 2020, running one of the biggest dance schools in the UK and launching the careers of many famous faces.

His first on-stage appearance came at the age of six, when he graced the Empire in Leeds as a Siamese twin in The King and I.

But his initial work was a far cry from the entertainment path he ended up taking. It did, however, come about as a result of the dance school.

“Somebody gave me this job, they created it, somebody who went to my mum’s dancing school,” Billy says. “He was the managing director of a branch of British United Glass at Pudsey and they made glass bottle moulds years ago.

“To cut a long story short, they created a job for me as a specialised apprentice. I had to go to technical college one day a week learning about engineering and working a lathe. I didn’t know what I wanted to do but I knew it wasn’t working in a factory like that.”

A motorbike accident then changed his life. Billy lost two-thirds of his liver, his spleen, a rib and damaged his kidneys.

By the time he recovered, “I went back to engineering but I had to start all over again with a different set of mates as I’d missed a whole year and I knew I didn’t want to do that”.

He tried his hand at a range of roles, as a set dresser at Yorkshire Television, porter at Schofields department store and stagehand at Leeds Grand Theatre. Then it was onto Butlins as a redcoat.

His entertainment career began with a double act with a chap who attended his mum’s dancing school. They performed on the club circuit, tap dancing and playing guitar, and Billy began to tell the odd joke.

He realised then that: “I love making people laugh… that’s what I think is the most powerful thing”.

He recalls a lightbulb moment at Batley Variety Club.

“We were doing all sorts, singing harmonies, playing instruments and we only got maybe 50 per cent of the audience paying any attention to us. They were getting drinks and food, chicken in a basket sort of thing.

“Afterwards, I went to the bar and a comedian went on and he stood there with a glass of whatever in his hand, a cigarette and leaned on the mic stand and he had everybody listening to him and eating out of his hand.

“I thought I’m going wrong here. I can’t get old doing what I’m doing, throwing myself about, but I can get old doing what he’s doing. It seemed to make more sense to me. So I tried it and it went from strength to strength.”

It took a lot of bottle, he says, to go out on his own for the first time and he admits: “I had some terrible times at the beginning when I didn’t really know what I was doing”.

But things slowly took off. Billy first came to national prominence when appearing in TV talent show New Faces in 1986 and a string of stage and television appearances followed, including his first show for the BBC, You Gotta Be Joking.

He has performed in three Royal Variety shows, as well as having stints in musical theatre and appearing on TV dramas Heartbeat and The Street –and he’s also found a niche in panto.

“I did panto once at Leeds Grand and it was strange because I was top of the bill and the last time I’d been in there, I was one of the stage hands. That was a full circle moment.”

Being back on stage at the Alhambra Theatre in Sleeping Beauty last Christmas was “a magical experience” after the pandemic, he says.

“It was so emotional because we had missed doing pantomime and the audience had missed it and there were lots of standing ovations and tears on stage and everything.”

After his crash injuries as a boy, Billy was deemed to be high-risk of getting seriously ill from Covid-19. It was a tough time.

“I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything,” he says. “In a way, with the weather nice when lockdown first started, I kind of enjoyed it and it was like a holiday.

“But then after a while of worrying about everything and money, and whether we’d ever be able to get back on a stage again, it became depressing. It got to the point where I thought I might have to sell my house and all that. I feel guilty moaning because I know so many people were worse off… But it did affect me a lot. I’m not used to not working.

“It occupies your mind and keeps you young. When that’s taken away from you and you can’t do anything about it, you have to accept it but it’s very difficult.”

“It’s a different world now with the ones left. They’re harder than they used to be I think because people get drunk before they go out. So if I’m going on late it’s like being thrown to the lions.”

This year, he’ll be returning to the Alhambra Theatre for his 23rd season, in a production of Jack and the Beanstalk.

“They’ve put a lot in me all these years,” he says. “It’s a wonderful theatre and they’ve sort of adopted me there. It’s brilliant. I feel like I’m at home when I’m at the Alhambra, I don’t think I’ll ever go anywhere else.”

Jack and the Beanstalk runs from Saturday, December 10 2022 – Sunday, January 22 2023 at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford. Tickets are on sale now from www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/whats-on/jack-and-the-beanstalk